Hank Johnson

Hank Johnson

The Beginning:

In 2010, Hank Johnson was sent to Afghanistan to investigate a mysterious Anomaly in the area. He had brought along a friend named Azmati and the two of them encountered hostile forces. While they were pinned down they discovered a powerful portal, the source of the Anomaly. It was believed at first that Azmati and Hank survived the conflict.

He was eventually found wandering the Hindu Kush Mountains and was debriefed by Zeke Calvin of the Niantic Project, which he ended up joining.

Eventually, Hank would depart from Niantic, being the only person who wasn’t present at Epiphany Night, leaving for Africa to investigate a theory related to XM and the Queen of Sheba. The full account of what occurred to Hank and what he would discover would be later written by Thomas Greanias and made into a book called the Alignment: Ingress.

The Enlightened Explorer:Afterward, he was the subject of the first XM Anomaly in history at Cahokia Mounds, Illinois, a place he had studied as a graduate student. The goal of the anomaly: Control the portals of Cahokia, control his alignment. The Enlightened won and, during the Alignment: Ingress novella, it became clear he would become Enlightened as well, shifting his perspectives about XM to be more positive about its role in human evolution and history.

Following the Anomaly, Hank remained silent through the Klue and Misty Anomalies but following the Magic Castle event, he began to operate alongside Carrie Campbell as she began to uncover the mystery of the emerging Shaper Glyphs. Hank’s work then took him to Cross Plains, TX, where he witnessed a powerful Anomaly while researching the connections between Robert E. Howard, a famous writer who lived there, and H.P Lovecraft. A large Shaper Glyph-‘Creativity’-appeared on site at Cross Plains following the Anomaly. Hank then moved from Cross Plains to go hunting for the legendary San Saba mines, which was rumored to contain a powerful XM Portal.

Hank discovered the mines and took pictures of the Glyphs he found inside and assembled them into a package, which he intended to give to Carrie. During the TimeZero Anomaly, a group of Enlightened Operatives in London received the package after things went awry and Carrie had to flee. The Agents decided to give up the package to Carrie-but on the condition that they get another chance to make Klue Enlightened. Hank complied and worked with them to get Klue to Portland, Oregon for a second round. The Enlightened succeeded in controlling the Anomaly. Afterward, he worked with them again to ensure they got the Glyph package to Carrie in Operation Voynich.

Afterward, he found himself returning to the old Niantic facility in secret, on a mission from Zeke Calvin: to retrieve the body of Roland Jarvis stored there and deliver it to the CDC.

13MAGNUS:

Hank attempted to meet with Devra as the world underwent the massive surge of XM activity known as Operation Cassandra. They met in New York City, in which Hank would learn of Devra’s activities within Visur. Following that, the two of them met up again at the start of 13MAGNUS. Hank and Devra worked together to unravel a mystery they had uncovered during their graduate days in Arecibo. Hank then went on to dig deeper into the group known as 13MAGNUS, a secret society holding the knowledge of XM-induced immortality.

As time progressed, the Investigative community learned that Hank and Zeke Calvin had been researching 13MAGNUS for some time, going as far back as Hank’s time as a grad student in Arecibo. It was learned that Calvin was the one who pulled strings to get Hank to Arecibo with the intent of getting him to research and dig up info on the secret society.

In Phoenix, Arizona, Hank uncovered a map of an ancient 13MAGNUS stronghold, a portal known as a Nest, where they conducted their immortality rituals. Surprisingly enough, it was the same place that Hank and Azmati explored in 2010. In a video caught on film, Hank entered the nest…and then vanished.

Recursion, Interitus and the Truth:

Hank re-emerged in Berlin, with no recollection of what happened in the Nest. While in Berlin, he tried to find Azmati while news of the 17 Recursion Artifacts became public. In Nashville, Klue-who was now ADA’s biological vessel-released a video showing the truth: Deeply buried in the Afghan Nest was Hank’s body. Hank actually died in 2010.

He went on to find Azmati in Austin, TX-the site of a Recursion Anomaly-and found out that he did die and that Azmati used the power of the nest and 13MAGNUS knowledge to make Hank a simulacrum-an immortalized version of himself, powered through XM. However that immortality had a time limit on it-1,331 days. After that deadline, Hank would undergo a Recursion-a reincarnation that erases their memories of the last cycle. Hank would go through this life and rebirth process for all of eternity.

Hank realized that using the Recursion Artifacts, which held the power of immortality and were sought after by Alexander the Great, could be used to break the cycle for good. However, the Resistance claimed the majority of the Shards and won the Recursion series, dooming him to recurse on June 11th, 2014.

Following that, Hank had no time to waste-he quickly began writing down all the memories he needed while also recruiting various individuals to help him. As the Interitus Anomalies moved forward, Oliver Lynton-Wolfe, Nigel Moyer and Azmati were all brought in for a special mission: if Hank couldn’t break the cycle then his only option was to somehow preserve his memories past the end. They worked alongside Enlightened Agents in Cross Plains to capture and store his memories from Portals around the world using Links to save them. The plan was a success and Hank could-and captured on video-recurse with peace, knowing his memories would be safe.

Darsana and the Anti-MAGNUS:

When Hank’s newest simulacrum woke up in the Nest in Afghanistan, he left the area and was re-captured by Calvin, who brought him in as the Helios Anomalies ended and the Artifacts, now turned Beacons, activated. Hank warned that they were bringing in ‘the Shapers’ worst nightmare.”

Hank then departed from Calvin, exploring the world to uncover the mystery of the new force known as the N’zeer. As Darsana continued, he learned that they were banished by the Shapers, who worked with 13MAGNUS, the ancient incarnation of the Enlightened faction, to erase them from human history.

Eventually, Hank found himself being tracked and hunted by various forces of the Ingress world, leading him to various firefights in India. Wounded, he found safety in the hands of a biotech researcher named Jahan, who tended to his wounds and helped him enter hiding.

During the time in Jahan’s place, he began to slowly piece together that there had been another secret society similar to 13MAGNUS: The Anti-MAGNUS. They seemingly had vowed to serve the N’zeer, believing that the N’zeer’s knowledge would be capable of healing humanity from its greatest ills, including poverty, war and disease.

As time progressed, Hank and Jahan began to unravel the mystery of the N’zeer together, ultimately discovering a place which held a powerful and mysterious object: The Shonin Stone. It was here that Hank learned the truth: Jahan was the leader of the Anti-MAGNUS.

Shonin, Persepolis, Abaddon and the present:

Jahan, holding Azmati and his family as collateral, forced Hank to go back to the Afghan Nest and to give her the Shonin Stone. In conjunction, these two were used to summon the N’zeer. However, Azmati ended up moving and destroying both the Stone and the Nest-causing both all the Niantic Researchers to disappear and causing Hank to cease being a simulacrum, re-entering his human body. Azmati died in the process.

Hank, fully human, left the destroyed Nest and, after tracking down and speaking to Azmati’s uncle, began to piece together what happened to all the Researchers while also becoming the new leader of 13MAGNUS. Following the end of the Shonin Anomalies, he announced his plans to head to the ancient city of Persepolis to confront Jahan.

While en-route to the ancient city, which was destroyed by Alexander the Great despite his failure to destroy the powerful XM Artifacts buried there, he found himself being visited by Devra, who warned him that if he went forward he wouldn’t return. He took her advice and abandoned his mission to Persepolis. Due to the RES victory and Hank’s absence, Jahan activated the power of the city.

Following that, Hank became invested in unravelling the mystery of Abaddon after realizing the possibility that Zeke Calvin may have had an ulterior agenda at the original Niantic Project.

As time progressed, it became clear that Calvin, at some point during the beginning of the Niantic Project, would lure the researchers into a high-tech Nest constructed underneath the original location and turn them into simulacra.

Eventually, he went on to work alongside Jahan in a very important mission. The two of them went to steal a Prime Artifact from a Central American drug lord and then headed over to the old Niantic facility to find the researchers’ bodies and use the artifact to re-awaken them. Due to the RES victory, the researchers all returned as simulacra, with no knowledge of what had happened since the original Project. After debriefing them all on what had really happened, Hank let them go.

Hank, like so many other forces in the world of Ingress, is currently observing the situation unfolding around the actions of Agents and Investigators to find the breadcrumbs of Obsidius.